'Paul?' She smoothed her hair, aware that I was watching her with interest. 'What is it?'

'Nothing… Let's go. They're heading for the beach road to Juan. We'll follow.'

'Why? We've lost them, thank God. Those big cars look nasty.'

'They weren't after us. They were chasing the Audi. You were right all along – it's a ratissage…'

Watched by the perplexed attendant, we left the Tétou car park and drove into Golfe-Juan. Despite the film festival, most of the restaurants facing the marina had closed for the night. Guests were leaving a party aboard a motor yacht, tipsily making their way down a gangway, visitors to a white township that emitted an ivory light like a floating cemetery.

'They've gone.' Frances searched the darkness for a turning.

'We'll go back to the RN7.'

'They're up ahead. I want to see what happens.'

'Forget about it! Did you recognize the man in the Audi?'

'Some tired dentist on his way home.'

'He followed us. Why?'

'You, not us. A midnight blonde on her way back from the festival with her pimp. Our vigilantes must have seen him and didn't approve. He looked a little Maghrebian – they'll teach him a lesson in racial respect.'

Reluctantly, Frances drove along the darkened front. At the eastern edge of Golfe-Juan a new apartment complex stood on the site of the ceramics factory I had once visited with my parents. The Audi was circling a nearby roundabout, chased by one of the Mercedes. Almost rolling the limousine onto its side, the driver rammed the rear of the Audi. The second Mercedes blocked the exit of the return road to Golfe-Juan. Its headlights shone on a violent game, a private demolition derby played out beneath the palm trees. Shards of broken glass from the Audi's tail-lights lay on the road, spitting like embers of a fire as the tyres raked across them.

'Hold back for a second.' I tried to steady Frances, who seemed disoriented by the harsh collisions. 'He's decided to cut and run…'

The Audi swerved from the roundabout, struck the kerb and set off towards Juan-les-Pins. The two Mercedes hurtled after it, engines blowing with an elephant-like roar, headlights picking out their quarry.

' Frances… let's move.'

'Why?' She sat stiffly at the wheel, refusing to look at the windscreen. 'They're crazy, Paul…'

'They're trying to be crazy – that's the point. We need more evidence.'

'Evidence?' Frances hunted the gearbox until I rammed the lever through its gate. 'On top of everything else?'

'Just keep going.'

We followed the deranged motorcade as it moved along the beach road. Waves broke on the strip of sand, their foam sluicing through the debris of beer cans and forgotten rubber flippers where the ageing Picasso had once played with Dora Maar and his children. The rotating beam of the lighthouse at La Garoupe swept along the shore, illuminating the closed bar-cabins and the low sea wall.

Frances slowed when one of the limousines ran alongside the Audi, jostling it as the second Mercedes accelerated and braked, lunging at the rear bumper. On our left, across the railway line, was the apartment complex of Antibes-les-Pins. A single light shone above a balcony, where some insomniac neighbour of Isabel Duval sat alone in her high-security apartment. I searched the balconies, distracted by a rush of noise as the Nice to Paris express emerged from the darkness. It thundered past us in a roar of steel rails and sped away into the night.

Stunned by the sound, Frances lost control of the car as the black vacuum in the wake of the express sucked the BMW from her hands. She gripped the wheel and shouted: 'He's going to crash! Paul!'

'Where?'

She pointed to the road ahead, where brake lights flared in alarm. The Audi overran the stone kerb, struck the sea wall and whirled into the air before plunging onto the beach below.

I took the wheel from Frances 's hands and steered the BMW onto the pedestrian walkway. The two Mercedes slewed around each other and stopped, for a moment vanishing into the darkness as they switched off their lights. We rolled to a halt beside a derelict bar, its wooden walls covered with fading posters for the Juan jazz festival. I turned off the engine and stepped onto the sea wall.

Frances sat stiffly over the wheel, staring at the instrument panel. She touched the brake lever, as if convinced that her clumsy driving had led to the accident.

Leaving her, I walked down the beach and let the cold sea sluice across my feet, soaking the rope soles of the espadrilles. I ran along the dark sand, the night air cutting through the open seams of Greenwood 's dinner jacket.

The Audi lay on its back in the shallow waves, flames lifting from the engine compartment. When the water retreated, I saw the driver's body trapped under the rear seat, an arm pressed to the passenger window. The dying flames flowed across the water that swilled around the car.

Two men in dinner jackets stepped from the first Mercedes, scaled the sea wall and walked to the water's edge, where one of them began to film the scene with a camcorder, waiting until the La Garoupe beam lit the stage for him. When I was twenty yards away he turned the camera and filmed me as I stood exhausted in the sodden espadrilles, my back to the lights of Golfe-Juan.

I walked towards them, pointing to the trapped driver, but the two men climbed the beach and returned to their car.

'Paul! Help him!'

Frances ran along the sand, a high-heeled shoe in each hand, throat muscles working while she gasped at the night air. She strode into the waves and gestured with her shoes at the car.

'My God, they killed him…'

I held her as the waves broke around our knees, and steered her through the undertow onto the beach. A vehicle with a pulsing emergency light moved along the road from Golfe-Juan, slowing to a stop when it approached the burning car.

'Paul, it's the police… talk to them.'

'They aren't police.' I watched the occupants step from the vehicle. 'It's the ambulance you ordered. We saw it outside the Villa Grimaldi…'

We stood at the water's edge as the paramedics pulled the dead driver from the Audi. He was a large, fleshy man in his fifties, and his pallid skin seemed to have been immersed in the sea for days. His dinner jacket clung to one arm, lying beside him like the wing of a drowned bird. The paramedics turned him onto his back and began to work at his chest. On the collars of their white overalls were printed the name and telephone number of an emergency ambulance service in Toulon.

Looking down over their shoulders, I recognized the blanched features of Pascal Zander.

I stared into the security chief 's eyes. Once so sharp and devious, they now gazed at nothing, the flat pupils like empty windows.

All the memories of his professional life, the secret codes and misdemeanours, were being washed away by the sea. One of the paramedics, a blond young man with a surfer's physique, pointed to my feet, and I realized that I was standing on Zander's hand.

I counted the pudgy fingers, their skin impressed with the sole pattern of my espadrilles, and realized that a few hours earlier they had probably fondled my wife's breasts.

Giving up their attempt to revive the dead man, the paramedics returned to the ambulance, where they lit cigarettes and spoke into their radio. I heard Frances gasp as she stood beside me, and turned to see her running along the beach to her car.

' Frances, wait! We'll call the police…'

Carrying her shoes, I set off towards the BMW. I was fifty yards away when I heard its engine begin to race. Frances waved me away, ran the car off the kerb and pulled out to pass the ambulance.

In the pale light reflected from the waves I could see her face, almost stiff with shock. She swerved around the two Mercedes limousines and set off at speed towards Juan-les-Pins.